Our surface and ground water sources from lakes, rivers and wells, are excellent sources of drinking water. With over 6,000 lake and ponds, Maine has some of the best water sources in the country. We use various treatment methods and monitor treatment to ensure we deliver safe drinking water to your tap every day.
The disinfection of public water supplies is one of the most important functions of a public water system operation. Meeting disinfection requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act regulations has all but eliminated typhoid, cholera, and dysentery in our country. Today’s regulations require that we treat and test, not only for elements that cause water-borne diseases, but also for a host of other potential hazards.
Disinfection of drinking water is one of the major public health advances in the twentieth century. In the early 1900s, typhoid and cholera were common throughout American cities; disinfection was a large factor in reducing these epidemics. Chlorine was the preferred disinfectant back then and continues to be the most widely used substance for water disinfection in the United States.
Safe drinking water has played a key role increasing human life expectancy from about 45 years in the early 1900s to about 76 years at present. Since disinfection of public water supplies began, there has been dramatic decline in infant mortality rates and the virtual elimination of cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery and gastroenteritis, as well as many other waterborne diseases which once killed tens of thousands of Americans.
